Southwest Adds Flights to Florida’s Destin-Fort Walton Beach in Summer 2026

Southwest Airlines is launching an expansion at Pittsburgh International Airport next summer, including its first nonstop service to Northwest Florida from the region.

In its latest schedule extension released Thursday morning, Southwest announced seasonal nonstop service between Pittsburgh and Destin-Fort Walton Beach International Airport (VPS) beginning June 6, 2026. The flights to Florida will operate on Saturdays through August 2026.

Elsewhere to Florida, Southwest will expand its Pittsburgh-Orlando route from four flights daily to six starting next summer, the most it has ever offered to the market.

Additionally, Southwest will expand its seasonal nonstop service to San Diego from once a week to four times a week when it resumes in June 2026, with nonstop flights operating on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays through August 2026.

New service to Destin-Fort Walton Beach and expanded flights to Orlando and San Diego are now for sale and can be booked at Southwest.com.

“We’re excited to see Southwest continue growing in Pittsburgh and building on two decades of success in our region,” said Joe Rotterdam, PIT’s Director of Air Service Development. “The addition of service to Destin-Fort Walton Beach and expanded flights to Orlando and San Diego shows Pittsburgh’s strong support for Southwest, and these routes enhance connectivity to in-demand destinations in Florida and on the West Coast that are key markets for our region.”

The added service at PIT is part of Southwest’s summer 2026 schedule, which opens new routes or expands capacity in key cities and increases intra-California service. In addition, Southwest will begin serving Alaska for the first time by connecting to Anchorage from its Denver and Las Vegas bases.

“In designing our summer 2026 schedule, we examined industry trends and identified locations – like Las Vegas, Orlando and San Diego – where we are able to provide customers more choices when they’re booking travel,” Adam Decaire, Southwest’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning and Network Operations Control, said in a statement. “Additionally, we’re boosting service in locations where we’ve always had a strong presence to offer customers even more service than ever before in those cities.”

More flights to Florida

Southwest becomes the second airline to offer nonstop flights between Pittsburgh and Destin-Fort Walton Beach, joining Allegiant Air, which operates the route seasonally twice-a-week from April through October.

Destin-Fort Walton Beach becomes Southwest’s seventh destination in Florida served nonstop from Pittsburgh, joining Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Miami, Orlando, Sarasota and Tampa. It also becomes Southwest’s 21st destination at PIT, the largest network of any airline at the airport.

Southwest’s expansion further adds growth by airlines flying between Pittsburgh and Florida, which includes JetBlue resuming daily, year-round flights to Fort Lauderdale beginning Nov. 2 and Delta Air Lines adding seasonal, nonstops to Orlando on Dec. 20 that will operate through April 2026.

This also will be the most nonstop flights Southwest has offered between Pittsburgh and San Diego since launching Saturday-only service in June 2024. Southwest’s expanded schedule, coupled with Breeze Airways’ existing twice-weekly nonstops on the route, adds flexibility for travelers flying to the California city.

It also adds capacity from Pittsburgh to the West Coast – a significant focus area PIT has sought to grow – which already has seen American Airlines and Breeze expand service to Los Angeles, and Delta resume daily flights to Salt Lake City, in the past year.

Southwest’s summer expansion comes after the airline celebrated 20 years of service at PIT in May highlighted by the carrier’s steady growth to become Pittsburgh’s largest airline. It is also Southwest’s latest investment in Pittsburgh since expanding its partnership with Icelandair to PIT that will add connections between the U.S. and Europe.